


A Beginning

by julien (julie)



Category: due South
Genre: Episode: s02e07 Juliet Is Bleeding, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-01-07
Updated: 1997-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/julien
Summary: Ray and Fraser sit up watching the late movie, the night after Irene Zuko’s funeral. Ray has a confession to make.
Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Vecchio





	A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> A little PWP-offering, set after episode 207 JULIET IS BLEEDING.

# A Beginning 

♦

‘Frank was suffering,’ Ray commented, ending the long silence. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Yes,’ said Fraser promptly and simply.

Well, Ray thought, of course Fraser had seen Frank Zuko. They had all attended the funeral that afternoon to bury Frank’s sister Irene, and to mourn for her – but how could the three men entirely ignore each other, given all that had happened? Given their shared responsibility for her death. ‘It won’t last,’ Ray added.

‘What won’t, Ray?’

The late night movie broke for a series of ads, and Ray turned his head to look at his friend. Fraser was sitting there in an easy chair, posture effortlessly upright – in direct contrast with Ray’s boneless slump on the sofa. They were in the Vecchio home’s living room, in comfortable darkness but for the flickering of the television set. Everyone else had gone up to bed an hour or more ago, and the place was quiet and kind of dull.

‘What won’t last?’ the Mountie prompted.

‘He’s putting himself through hell, but Frank’ll snap out of it soon enough. He’s not much of a one for shouldering the burden of guilt. He’ll think of some way he can worm out of holding himself responsible for shooting her, and he’ll put it behind him, and that will be that. He’ll be all smiles again, while her kids are still suffering.’

‘And will you still be suffering, Ray?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, not making any big deal out of it.

Fraser took a breath, thought again about what he was going to say, and went on to say it anyway. ‘Then I am at a loss as to why you didn’t press charges against him for manslaughter. I’d assumed it was because you felt he would punish himself sufficiently. Not to say I’d either condone or condemn your judgement in the matter – but it was what I’d thought you’d do.’

‘She wanted the bad stuff between me and Frank to end. It was the last thing she asked of me.’

‘But will Zuko _let_ it end?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ray heaved a sigh. ‘I don’t know.’

They subsided into silence again, both ostensibly watching the movie. However, if someone had asked him, Ray would not have been able to say what the damned thing was about or who was in it.

‘There was a time,’ Ray said into the darkness, ‘when Frank would come visit me every Friday night, and he’d sit right here next to me on this very sofa, and we’d watch the late movies together. We were, oh, sixteen or seventeen. And once everyone was asleep upstairs, Frank and me, well… we’d make out.’

A hushed pause. Fraser didn’t pretend not to know what Ray meant. After a while, Fraser whispered, ‘Did you love him?’

‘Yes.’ Then Ray tilted his head in a _maybe_ kind of way. ‘Well, I wouldn’t read too much into that. I’ve loved a lot of people, I’ve got around a bit, you know. Though it’s been women, other than Frank. I loved Irene – she and I were the genuine article. With Frank, it was mostly just mucking around. I cared about him, but he never really forgave me for loving her and leaving him behind.’

‘He wanted you to love him,’ Fraser said.

‘I don’t know. It wouldn’t exactly have ever worked out. There wasn’t really a future in it, was there?’

Fraser recognized this for the rhetorical question it was. He said, ‘I should have seen this before.’

Ray grinned over at him, wry. ‘Nice to know I still have _some_ secrets.’

‘I’m sure you have many. But this – this certainly helps explain the bitterness between you and Zuko. I had assumed… a tentative friendship. Or a fear of who you both are, a fear of what your similarities and differences are, and how you each make that obvious to the other.’

‘Well, I guess that’s all fair enough, too.’ Ray considered this, forgetting to be surprised any more that Fraser was taking this confession so well. ‘We _were_ friends, for a while, Frank and me. This… groping around in the dark together, that was sort of a friends thing. He was braver back then.’

‘Yes?’ Fraser softly asked.

Ray said, ‘There was this one time my Pop came home after spending the evening at Fanelli’s. He walked in on us. I mean, it was dark with just the television on, like it is now – but Frank had his hand down my pants, and I was _this_ close to… So, Pop walks in on us, and I almost die. But before I could move, before I could leap up and begin making all kinds of stupid excuses that would never have been believed, Frankie shushed me and we just stayed still and watched the man. And, sure enough, he was drunk as you can get and not fall over. He lumbered over to that chair you’re sitting in, watched the movie for all of five seconds, and promptly fell asleep.’ Ray laughed a little at the memory. ‘Frank was grinning like a mad thing. It’s about the only time I’ve seen him all bold and defiant without ten goons to back him up. He was quite something.’ A pause before Ray blurted out, ‘It was the only time he ever went down on me. Right then and there, with my Pop snoring not five feet away.’

Fraser had gotten up, vacating the easy chair, and coming over to settle beside Ray instead. Still sitting up tall and true, he took Ray’s nearest hand into both of his, in the most comforting of gestures. Which was nice, for Ray supposed the Mountie could have been horrified by what he’d just heard.

Instead, Fraser asked very gently, ‘How did it begin?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ray said with a shrug. ‘How do any of these things ever begin?’ His hand caught up loosely in both of Fraser’s, resting on Fraser’s thigh. ‘Easy, and slow, and tentative. Wondering if your friend’s going to get mad and knock you on your tail. But needing to do it anyway, risking everything because it seems in the middle of that very moment that nothing could ever possibly be sweeter than…’

‘…than his kiss,’ Fraser whispered.

And Fraser leaned in closer, and carefully pressed his mouth to Ray’s.

Ray allowed it, after a stunned moment slipped past them. The time to object was out of reach before he’d barely even thought about it. So, Ray allowed the approach, and he moved his mouth under Fraser’s – and then the man was kissing him with all the passion Ray had known was in there, but had rarely directly witnessed. It was sweet, certainly, this kiss both well-crafted and newly-inspired. How the hell did Fraser _do_ that?

Fraser broke away, shifting back just far enough so they could consider each other. The Mountie was fond and curious – and, at some deep level that was nevertheless simple and undemanding, he was excited. Despite that obvious hunger, Ray knew if he pushed Fraser away with words or attitudes or moves now, the man would never try this again.

‘Oh my,’ said Ray in the lightest tones he could manage. ‘Constable Benton Fraser. Wherever did that come from?’

‘I’ve wanted to do that for some time.’ A delightfully breathless tone in his voice, and then a brighter image from the television betraying Fraser’s glint of humor. ‘I didn’t realize… Ray, I thought you would knock me on my tail if I tried.’

Ray chuckled. ‘I still might.’

Fraser considered him for a long moment, that gaze taking in everything that was Ray Vecchio sitting there in his family home. ‘I’ll risk it,’ the Mountie declared, and he leaned down to kiss Ray again.

Ah, it was lovely. Ray just stayed where he was, sprawled back on the sofa. Simply letting Fraser be whoever and whatever Fraser seemed to want very much to be right now. Letting his friend share this pleasure between them. The man’s face alight with wonder and happiness, when if Ray had thought about it at all he’d have imagined Fraser more serious in his approach to such significant interactions.

One of Fraser’s hands let go of Ray’s, and with very precise fingers undid three of his lower shirt buttons. Then the hand slid inside, and palmed Ray’s waist – the sudden flesh-to-flesh intimacy provoking a gasp from Ray.

They enjoyed that for a while, and then before there was any chance of the embrace losing its freshness, Fraser withdrew his hand and unbuttoned Ray’s trousers. Not bothering with the zipper, Fraser slipped his hand under Ray’s shirt again. And, breaking the kisses to meet Ray’s gaze instead, Fraser pushed down within the confines of Ray’s pants and shorts, and took his cock into a firm grasp.

Another gasp, and an uncontrollable shudder ran through the core of him. Ray’s breath was coming hard now, his lips dry without Fraser’s to moisten them. He was already within reach of the end – if he’d been touching himself in this heightened state, then two or three knowing stokes would have finished him off.

Sensing this, somehow _knowing_ this, Fraser began a deliberate beat, slow enough to make it last but already promising completion. He shifted down so they were sprawled ungainly next together, initiated a driving kiss – bodies pressing against each other where they could, and wanting more, trying for more.

Ray groaned a protest through the kiss, finding that he wanted very much for this to be a mutual thing. Refusing to be deflected from the urgency, Fraser didn’t cooperate – nevertheless, Ray found the man’s waistband and plunged his hand inside, determinedly fumbling past shirt-tails and boxers to locate his goal.

Fraser was hard, unbearably hard. Even as Ray tried to match the pace Fraser set, something within Fraser pushed the man over the edge into ragged thoughtless need, and within seconds Fraser was coming under Ray’s not-so-tender ministrations, stifling a cry against Ray’s throat.

Which was enough, as it turned out, to trigger Ray’s own orgasm.

Sweet. Sweet and sticky, and a warm silly glow between them. Lazy kisses, and Ray unable to prevent himself chuckling again, which Fraser didn’t seem to take amiss. No, Fraser himself was smiling.

Eventually, as neither of them were teenagers any more, the embrace cramped up there together on the sofa became uncomfortable. They slowly withdrew, ensuring each knew of the other’s reluctance, and sat up. Trying to rearrange clothing and flesh that would need the laundry and a shower to put right.

Ray couldn’t stop grinning. ‘Benton Fraser,’ he eventually said. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

‘Not you, apparently,’ the Mountie replied. ‘Not the person most concerned.’

‘Well, I guess I’m kind of slow sometimes.’

‘Not usually. I was therefore assuming a complete lack of interest.’ Fraser tilted his head, and the light from the television caught the blue of his eyes. ‘Ray, if there is even the slightest bit of love in your heart for me, I would like very much for us to do this again.’

Ray nodded, considering the notion even as he agreed to it. ‘Yeah. Sure, Benny. We can do this again sometime.’

Fraser was grinning, too, now. He looked rather incredible, being so patently happy. ‘Good,’ he said, with a nod as if to convey that it was all decided. He sat back against the sofa, returning his attention to the movie. Ray settled again, content to sit there beside his friend. His best friend. And, after a moment, without needing to look to find it, Fraser reached to hold Ray’s hand in his.

♦


End file.
